David Hecker

Head of Studio

David's passion for creative technology started at the age of 10 with a ZX Spectrum+, custom circuit boards and software to do fun things over the serial port of the ZX Interface 1. Since those heady days, David has amassed 30 years experience in television, animation (including as an educator) and game development, with a particular focus of late on managing multi-disciplinary teams of varying sizes.

He has worked as an animation director and technical lead on a variety of 2d animated series for the likes of Disney Channel and Wish Films. As a game designer and project manager on mobile projects, he has created games for various international sports teams and children's brands.

Career highlights include interactive applications for the likes of Amazon and HSBC, and a #1 app store debut kids game.

Most days, David can be found with his head buried in a magnificent spreadsheet of some form, obsessing over the correct shade to use for conditionally formatting a formula result. His main duties at Yellow Lab Games are to wrangle the developers and technical artists to deliver quality work on time, while maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

Denzil Buchner

Senior Developer

Denzil discovered his love for game development during childhood, spending countless hours not only playing games but also designing them on paper. Growing up, he found himself in a tug-of-war between his creative and technical sides. He explored creative endeavours such as writing both short and long-form stories, while also nurturing a passion for mathematics, science, and programming. His interest in game development began with Game Maker in Grade 6 and later expanded to Java, OpenGL, and eventually Unity during his high school years.

Ultimately, the technical side briefly took precedence, leading him to complete a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering. This led to his first role as a software engineer at an engineering firm. However, after a few career moves, he found his way to Yellow Lab Games, where he now works as a Senior Software Engineer, perfectly blending his technical expertise and creative passion in the field of Game Development.

At Yellow Lab Games, Denzil leads a young and enthusiastic team to success on a technical level, ensuring high-quality work while fostering a collaborative and supportive environment.

Unati Mtoto

Administrator

Unati does the things that 'ordinary' humans would rather NOT do, given the chance! She plays in the background doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes and off camera and has so much fun doing it. Unati wrestles the Administration side of the business into shape, dealing with finances, payroll, and ad hoc admin.

Unati's love for numbers started in high school and she pursued that in Uni where she majored in Accounting. She is a multitasker... a life skill learnt from being a mom . Juggling between burning the pots in the kitchen, to changing diapers, while doing the school homework! A full on mixed bag, and more!

Ashira Yodaiken

Developer

Starting off as a graduate Motion Designer with a growing interest in programming, a chance conversation with David led Ashira down the path of game development. Ashira's career began with app and web development before she was moved into games where she now works as a game developer with experience in Unity and Phaser.

Ashira loves the interactive story side of game development and is very inspired by games like Stray and Firewatch. She finds it rewarding being a developer and seeing how all the parts like systems and graphics come together.

Aside from work, Ashira loves being outside and can be found climbing or hiking up a mountain and is happy to be the resident jock of the company.

Bianca Louw

Community Manager

Bianca is our in-house word wrangler. Much like modern search engines, she has approximate knowledge of many things. She's our ubiquitous online doer of things; if you see something about YLG online, she probably had a hand in doing it. Except this website. She had nothing to do with this... She's **mostly** ubiquitous.

Bianca started off in the industry by writing for South African gaming news sites while studying. During her years of service to the local gaming scene, she developed her skills of managing a community since conventions & events exposed her to everyone from writers, to cosplayers, to AAA developers. Years later, these skills came in handy when an esports organisation needed a community manager, and the rest, as they say, isn't important enough to mention here.

Now, Bianca has become the voice of Yellow Lab Games as we try to be one of the heralds of the African gaming industry.

Diyanka Govender

Developer

In an alternate universe where Diyanka's parents stopped her from pursuing a career in games, she ended up a lawyer. Luckily in this universe, she gets to make video games for a living!

Diyanka is a lover of all things games! She loves playing them and is super amped that she now gets to make them with cool people at Yellow Lab Games.

Her favourite things about games are the interactive stories they tell and the immersion they provide. Now working on games, she's also discovered a love for UI and UX too.

When not working at Yellow Lab she is winning game jams and participating in the local Cape Town game dev scene. She is passionate about taking South African game development worldwide and has done so by being a speaker at the Game Devs of Color Expo in 2024.

Outside of games, Diyanka enjoys film photography, eating ice cream, going to the beach and touching grass.

Filippo Cortese

Developer

Filippo's passion for game development started at 14 in his school's Unity game development club. Born in Italy and partly raised in South Africa, he brings a unique blend of experiences to his work. Over the years, he has worked on a wide variety of games, from cozy single-player fishing adventures to fast-paced roguelites and first-person co-op shooters, contributing to engine tools, gameplay systems, and platform integration for Steam and consoles.

An avid gamer, Filippo loves RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Divinity: Original Sin, and The Witcher, as well as strategy game classics like Civilization and Age of Empires. When he's not coding or gaming, he enjoys playing guitar and piano, always finding new ways to stay creative.

His main roles at Yellow Lab Games include gameplay programming, platform integration, and coming up with wild ideas prefaced by a well-timed "Hear me out..."

Jack Rathbone

Game Designer & Developer

While watching his older brother play Oblivion in 2006, a very young Jack realised that someone probably made the games he loved. This started a lifelong passion/obsession with game design and development, and created a never ending list of ideas and unfinished prototypes.

After moving back to South Africa to study Digital Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand In Johannesburg, he discovered how amazing the local game dev scene in South Africa was (and became addicted to game jams along the way). This led him to Cape Town where he joined up with Yellow Lab Games.

Jack juggles two hats as both a Unity developer and a game designer, with experience porting, bug fixing and writing up game pitches. Outside of work he is heavily involved with the Cape Town game dev community. He also enjoys looking smart and so spends his spare time reading, dabbling in film photography and creative writing.

JD Viljoen

Jack of all Trades, Master of Audio

Playing videogames for 20+ years and boasting 13 years of music & audio. JD has a passion for all things present in the 20 to 20 000Hz range.

Starting off as the bassplayer for an alt-metal band and delving into the world of sound production; he has since acquired formal education from both SAE Institute and Berklee.

He worked as a freelance studio and mix engineer for many years, transitioning to motion graphics, design, and back to sound design and interactive music for games.

But that wasn't enough. As a left-brained creative, innovating interactive audio became tough without the tech side; [Enter computer science degree here]

With a vast pool of experiences in all sorts of creative endeavours and an eye ear for quality, he finally found a home with the Yellow Lab family where every skill is put to use.

Lover of live music and craft beer, JD still performs with his original band and loves punishingly difficult video games.

JD also likes the indoors and short walks to the coffee machine.

Nix Baalbergen

Artist

Nix is a concept artist and illustrator with an insatiable passion for anything art related. With a strong foundation in digital art, she brings vibrant, atmospheric designs to life, blending technical elements with playful creativity and charm.

Rarely without a pen or tablet in hand, Nix draws inspiration from new experiences and the world around her, channeling these influences into her work. With over 5 years in the creative industry, Nix has had the opportunity to engage in the art pipeline for games and has been privileged to work on many passion projects as well as the chance to work with Total War Games. At Yellow Lab Games, she is involved with all things creative, managing to deliver projects that are imaginative and impactful with her signature quirky flair (and the colour pink).

Reonie Bothma

Animator

Reonie is a digital artist who has dipped her toes in many areas of the industry over the last 16 years.

Her role at Yellow Lab Games is as a 2D/3D animator and game asset artist. Although she has been busy making the pixels move as a pixel art animator recently.

Before she had worked various aspects of the industry such as running the animation department for Jincon, a HSE studio focusing on the industrial sector; creating 3D anatomical models for medical education and drawing backgrounds for the 2D animated series Caillou.

Reonie has a love of reading and TTRPGs which has led her to be the artist for the Demon Dayz Podcast and Wick and Fandom subscription box.

And if she is not busy reading then she is either playing Minecraft or keeping an eye over the slow progress of a 3D printer.

Dr Patch Bunsen

Chief Motivational Floofer

"Woof woof!" (Translation: "Welcome to the Lab!")

Our mascot Dr Patch Bunsen isn't just a golden Labrador in a lab coat and goggles, they also serve as a symbol of our commitment to innovation, heart and passion unleashed. Who needs opposable thumbs when you've got boundless curiosity?

Dr. Patch inspires us to experiment boldly while staying grounded in the joy of play, and represents the balance we strive for: combining craftsmanship with a warm, inviting spirit.

Whether it's barking up skill trees or sniffing out bugs, Dr. Patch reminds us that the best games come from exploring the unknown and connecting with players in meaningful ways. At Yellow Lab Games, Dr Patch Bunsen knows how to fetch the best ideas and is the goodest floofer in game tech!"